Never Better

In a couple of weeks I'll be going back to Dublin for some more of the fancy radiotherapy I had last year. 
(SABR is it's official title, I've learned, which means stereotactic ablative radiotherapy, but also has a pretty appropriate meaning in Arabic).

I have to go back because there are two small white bits on my CT scans in my right lung. They've been there a while, on three scans in a row. They're a little bit bigger now than they were four months ago. 5mm now instead of 4. Or something weenchy like that. 

They could be cancer. They could be snot. They could be little pieces of popcorn I inhaled while I snoozed on the couch. 

I have metastatic cancer, cancer that spreads. Once the cat is out of the bag, you can never get it back in again. Even if the cat is really good at hiding, you know it's out there somewhere. (Let's not even get Shrodinger-y about this; my brain might burst).

So when stuff pops up that "could be cancer", the wise money is on it, in fact, being cancer. Not snot. Or popcorn. 

I could takes my chances and stand firm on the snotcorn theory. I could have another few scans and see does it suddenly leap out of the picture hissing and spitting, saying "I AM cancer you dumbass, what did you think I was? A misplaced salty cinema snack??" 

But the Too-Lateness of that is a little bit offputting.

So I will set the GPS for Poshville again and go for a few sessions of very expensive snotcorn removal.  

No to No

I am anti-abortion.

I am pro-choice.  

For years, I have been able to have these thoughts, in my head, keeping them to myself, reasonably happy with how they felt. I never had to commit them to paper, or proclaim my opinions publicly. I never had to get off the fence. 

I have been broadly liberal, mostly tree-hugging, fairly non-discriminatory, largely into Equality and Diversity and Inclusion and all those lovely buzzwords which make me feel like a Good Person. 

I have been unshackled by religion and yet a staunch believer in morality and integrity, and lots of other "christian" ideals. 

But now it's time to pick the splinters out of my backside and jump off that fence. 

Ticking the NO box on the ballot paper would be easy. 
NO = I don't like killing babies.
NO = I think all women should love and cherish the life growing inside them.
NO = all life should be valued.
NO = abortion should never have to happen.

But that's not what NO means. 
NO means all the same stuff still happens, in the same unsafe, demeaning, traumatic, shame-inducing way that it currently happens every day.
NO means that we continue to brush the uncomfortable thoughts under the carpet, and fool ourselves into thinking we are morally good and right for doing so.

In my lifetime I have held five two-lined peed-on pregnancy tests in my shaking hands. 
Only three of those potential lives came into the world. The other two were just as precious to me, but they simply didn't make it.

I could get pregnant now. I have functioning ovaries and a wonky-but-working womb. 

But I have been radiated upside-down and sideways for three and a half years. I'm pretty sure that's not doing my eggs any favours. And I will continue to be radiated for the rest of my life,  getting scanned every few months, getting superstrength zaps any time  any straggly cancer bits raise their ugly heads. If the cancery bits get very feisty they'll need a good dose of Toxic Waste chemo to beat them into submission. 

None of which is in the What to Expect guide to a successful and healthy pregnancy. 

What would I do? 
Would I suspend all treatment for my Should-Be-Dead-By-Now cancer, and try to nurture the potential life inside me? Knowing that both of us could end up in the morgue, leaving behind the three lives I have painstakingly brought this far? 
Or would I erase that potential life, with a reluctant and broken heart, to grasp at the fragile straw of saving my own skin? 

I don't want to have to think about it. I don't want to face up to the reality of that choice. I wish it would all go away.

Voting No doesn't make it all go away.

It just makes those decisions so much harder.

Not Me

In our house growing up there were six children, plus a seventh ephemeral being known as "Not Me".
This entity (it had no gender) was invariably present whenever a wrongdoing had been detected - a broken cup, a busted lip, a stolen fiver. 
"WHO DID THIS?" 
"Umm [you guessed it], Not Me."

I am not about to fess up to a 35-year-old misdemeanour (though, yes, it was me who picked all the wallpaper off the wall). 

I want to put my hand up and say, instead of #MeToo, #NotMe.

I am one of the lucky ones, one of the minority (yay! another minority to be in! kudos).

I have never been assaulted, raped, beaten, psychologically disintegrated, molested or mentally tortured. 

But I know, personally and professionally, individuals who have endured all of these things. I have looked into the eyes of people who have been in fear of their lives because they were a victim, a target, an opportunity, a soft touch. 

I confronted a man who had committed a crime, though I was too young at the time to realise that's what it was. I was not his victim and I thought I was a heroine, swooping in to avenge on someone else's behalf. Looking back, all that happened was that he patronised me out of it, and I failed to report his sorry ass for using his position of power to abuse young women. He moved on.

I giggled when a very famous individual groped my knee - I was too giddy at the excitement of a bottle of under-age cider, and besides, he was just a drunken dirty old man with fancy French shirts and a big boat. I knew my father didn't vote for him anyway. 

I was less impressed when a pudgy, also-famous, fella decided to give me a big wet kiss on my cheek just because some football match had finished with a score that pleased him. But I was hardly going to make a big deal out of that now, was I? There I was, shouting Man On and Square Ball and Refereeeee! so I I was obviously into the whole thing, and as the only woman in the room I was surely going to offer up a cheek in celebration? Hardly worth getting my knickers in a knot over. 

And the point is, these are only minor transgressions in the scheme of things. They annoyed me, like wolf-whistles are annoying, or sniggers, or inappropriate jokes. These are the baseline. You do not get through life as a woman without some of these. 

There are the other grey-area ones, about consent, or not. There's always a few of those scattered around in the past. 

But I have been lucky, and I realise it. 

However, I cannot abandon those fear-filled eyes that have looked into mine. I cannot walk away from the bruised cheekbones, the crushed spirit, the defeat. 

I cannot join in with the "Erra don't mind your bloody Women's Day business. What about the poor men?" carry-on. 

I don't want to see that fear in anyone's eyes, male or female. I don't want to hear about relentless emotional abuse and degradation from anyone, male or female. 

It just so happens, that in 18 years of doctoring, the majority of those eyes have belonged to women.